The Wildlands by Abby Geni

The Wildlands by Abby Geni– 368 pages

Book Blurb:

When a Category 5 tornado ravaged Mercy, Oklahoma, no family in the small town lost more than the McClouds. Their home and farm were instantly demolished, and orphaned siblings Darlene, Jane, and Cora made media headlines. This relentless national attention and the tornado’s aftermath caused great tension with their brother, Tucker, who soon abandoned his sisters and disappeared.
On the three-year anniversary of the tornado, a cosmetics factory outside of Mercy is bombed, and the lab animals trapped within are released. Tucker reappears, injured from the blast, and seeks the help of nine-year-old Cora. Caught up in the thrall of her charismatic brother, whom she has desperately missed, Cora agrees to accompany Tucker on a cross-country mission to make war on human civilization.
Cora becomes her brother’s unwitting accomplice, taking on a new identity while engaging in acts of escalating violence. Darlene works with Mercy police to find her siblings, leading to an unexpected showdown at a zoo in Southern California.

My Review: 4.5 stars

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The Wildlands, a work of literary fiction, is a riveting, suspenseful mystery filled with family drama, sibling bonds, animal instincts and the wrath of nature. Cora, the main protagonist, is telling the story of what she calls, the summer she disappeared, four decades later. Right then, I became invested, and when a tornado threatens to destroy their home and farm, I became engrossed.

Geni makes magic with her language, it’s poetic, lyrical, intense and smart – all at once. She makes nature its own character and teaches the reader at the same time. The relationships between Tucker and Cora, Tucker and Darlene (the oldest sister) and Tucker and the animals are equally impressive. Cora’s safety is at the center of everyone’s attention, while it is Tucker’s actions that keep everyone worried.

The plot is wonderfully recounted in the book blurb as well as the plethora of reviews. I have no need to re-report it. What isn’t shared is the depth of ruin, change, survival, endurance, PTSD, love, helplessness, grief and anger that is embedded throughout the story. I’d never thought about eco-terrorism before and this book gave me a glimpse as to why it could happen. In the author’s debut book, The Lightkeepers, and in this one as well, ecological issues, the study of animals and the moods of Mother Nature are layered into her storytelling.

Quotes I liked:

Darlene pictured the funnel cloud roaring through Tucker’s mind, scattering the elements of his personality across the landscape, leaving only chaos in his wake.” 

– “He survived the tornado, but, in the end, it took him too.” 

– “I remembered Tucker telling me that luck was no lady; luck was a mean drunk who didn’t know when to stop punching.”